Fox News was buried in legal challenges in the wake of the 2020 election, after many of its hosts and anchors made various claims about the election that were unproven or outright false.
According to NPR, lawyers for the network are once again headed back to the courtroom regarding a 2020 election-related lawsuit filed by voting machine company Smartmatic.
The trip back to court will be a familiar one for the network, which lost a staggering $787 million in a settlement with Dominion Voting Systems for similar defamation claims. The settlement rocked the network and resulted in several popular hosts either being fired or ultimately leaving the network.
Thanks to a ruling from a New York state appellate court, Smartmatic will now be able to pursue a jaw-dropping $2.7 billion defamation case against the popular cable news network.
The pre-trial process of discovery for the lawsuit reportedly resulted in a mountain of damning pieces of evidence that showed what the network was allowing at the time some of its hosts and guests made the election-related claims.
NPR noted:
A flood of revelations from the pre-trial process of discovery yielded damning internal communications. The judge found that network figures from junior producers to primetime hosts, network executives, Murdoch and his son Lachlan knew that Joe Biden had won the election fairly. Yet, they allowed guests to spread lies that Trump had been cheated of victory to win back Trump viewers.
Maria Bartiromo and the late Lou Dobbs were some of the hosts named who allowed guests to make "unsubstantiated and wild" claims about Smarmatic. They were also accused for sometimes endorsing the allegations against the voting machine company.
NPR added:
Amid outcry, Fox News and Fox Business Network ran an awkward segment with a voting tech expert, Edward Perez, to present viewers with a rebuttal to those outlandish claims. Newsmax, a right-wing channel in competition with Fox for viewers who supported Trump, did much the same.
Smartmatic's lead attorney, Erik Connolly, released a statement after the appellate court's ruling.
"Today, the New York Supreme Court rebuffed Fox Corporation's latest attempt to escape responsibility for the defamation campaign it orchestrated against Smartmatic following the 2020 election," Connolly said in a statement.
He added, "Fox Corporation attempted, and failed, to have this case dismissed, and it must now answer for its actions at trial. Smartmatic is seeking several billion in damages for the defamation campaign that Fox News and Fox Corporation are responsible for executing. We look forward to presenting our evidence at trial."
Smarmatic machines were not nearly as widely used as Dominion Voting Systems voting machines, and Fox's lawyers questioned the sincerity of the value of the reported lost contracts Smartmatic is claiming.
Fox News lawyers released their own statement in the wake of the ruling.
"We will be ready to defend this case surrounding extremely newsworthy events when it goes to trial," the lawyers said.
They added, "As a report prepared by our financial expert shows, Smartmatic's damages claims are implausible, disconnected from reality, and on their face intended to chill First Amendment freedoms."
